Anti-gay rights referendum signature error rate decreases

The secretary of state released an update Tuesday on the signature check on Referendum 71, the first since Friday.

R-71 is the measure seeking to overturn Washington’s “everything but marriage” same-sex domestic partner law. Proponents turned in 137,689 signatures – 14 percent more than the minimum. Referendum sponsors need 120,577 valid signatures to earn a place on the November ballot.

Election officials have revised how they are reporting signature checks. They are being more cautious now because their initial reports included rejected signatures that were later deemed OK after more scrutiny.

David Ammons, secretary of state spokesman, said Tuesday the latest recap includes “only the batches that have been fully vetted by checkers and reviewed and revised by master checkers, shows 33,214 signatures checked, with 3,462 rejected, for a current error rate of 10.42 percent.”

Ammons said the error rate is lower than than the daily and cumulative numbers that had been previously reported, because earlier numbers included signatures that were still being reviewed.

“A prime example is that hundreds of signatures were not initially found on voter rolls by the checker, but a later check by the veteran master checkers did make a match,” Ammons siad. “The error rate is expected to rise as the count continues, largely because the number of duplicate signatures will rise as the number of checked signatures rises. In order to qualify for the November ballot, sponsors of R-71 would have to stay below an error rate of 12.4 percent by the time the last signature is checked. State Elections Director Nick Handy said it remains “too close to call” whether R-71 will make the ballot, and cautioned against making assumptions based on the current error rate.”

The secretary of state’s signature count is expected to be done by the end of the month. Click here and here for more detail about the process.